13 Reasons Why You’re Not Losing Weight and What You Can Do About It

#13, Same Routine = Same Results; every 3-6 weeks you should mix it up.

#12, Not Keeping a food & cardio journal; gotta keep records to beat records

#11, Too Many Splurge Meals; 2 meals or 10% of your meals can be splurges (no sugar).

#10, Drinking too much alcohol; save it for the splurges & no more than 3 drinks per week.

#9, 1st: No sugar at all. 2nd, limit sugar free sweeteners to 1-2x/wk (save it for your splurges)

#8, too many starchy carbs, not enough vegetables and fruits Read the rest of this entry

By Benjamin Petitpas, CSCS, CPT

Having an increase in your metabolism means that there is an increase in the amount of calories that your body is burning to maintain its normal functions. If you have been having a difficult time burning fat and losing weight these 5 tips can help you get over the hump and help you maximize your metabolism and have you burning more calories all day long even while you are resting.

1. Strength Training

Strength training can help increase your metabolism in a few different ways. The first way is from the calories that you will burn during the workout itself. The second way is from the afterburn effect strength training has on your body, known as Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). EPOC can be described as an increase in your body’s metabolic activity following a strength training workout as your body is trying to recover and return itself to a pre-exercise state.   A third way strength training increases the metabolism, is because it builds build lean muscle mass. This is important because the more lean muscle mass that you have, the more calories it takes for your body to maintain it. So as a result it causes an increase in your metabolism, so even will you are resting, your body will be burning more calories to support your lean muscle mass.

2. Interval Training

Read the rest of this entry

Specific. Measureable. Attainable. Realistic. Timeline.

By Michael L. Alves, ATC, CSCS

O.K.  If you’re considering changing your body and getting in your best shape for 2009, then you must set S.M.A.R.T. goals.

What are S.M.A.R.T. goals?  S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and timeline and is a formula for achieving goals.  Read on to learn more.

Specific:  You must set specific goals if you want to achieve them.  General goals gets you general (read:  mediocre) results, specific goals, get you…you guessed it, specific (read:  awesome) results.

Ask yourself, “What is it I must change now?  What way am I tired of being and I must do it now or I’m only going to get older and it’s never going to change.”

Measurable:  You must be able to measure your progress in the short term (to keep excited or to make adjustments if not going as planned) and long term (how will you know you’ve achieved your goal).

What feeling/emotions and actions will you measure daily?

What objective & subjective things can you measure each week/month to give you feedback on your progress? Read the rest of this entry

Michael Phelps diet consisted of eating 12,000 calories a day while he was training for the Olympic Games this past summer. The crazy thing about it is that he said he was still having a hard time keeping weight on because of all of the calories he burned during his workouts.

Check out this video below it is hilarious!

This is what would happen if the majority of us tried the Michael Phelps diet!